Qantas FF announcement 20 June - "biggest overhaul" in program history

[opusman]

My question is does anyone know how the changes announced today affect One World Classic awards?

Yes OneWorld awards up as well. See ABT or other posts in this thread for details.

 

[Gganci]

Half way there. More people have climbed Everest..

 

[TigerBob]

The Lifetime Platinum is an utter Joke. In order to get Platinum over Gold, it goes from 600 to 1200 status Credits in a year to retain. Lifetime Gold is 3,500. As I have over 17,000 status credits, I thought I would be in line for Lifetime Platinum. But it's 75,000 Status credits which is over 20 times that of Gold. What a disgrace. What a joke. I thought the person on the phone at Qantas was having me on, but she was serious and trying to keep a straight face over the phone this afternoon when I called. Just a disgrace.

 

[coyote25]

From The Age website

He (Alan Joyce) said that 300,000 of the new seats will be in premium classes, encouraging lower-tier point earners to take their time and save.

I’m guessing that this is mostly PE but still a good number extra seats if you trust QF numbers.

 

[Rich]

But for those in the pointy end, which is everyone on this forum

Actually not everyone. Don't get me wrong, I want to fly the pointy end (on points) and I have the points, but I am usually restricted by needing seats for all the family and in peak times. As a bronze FF that is almost impossible. Economy is usually not worth the points and dollars compared with a discount fare. The end result is that I end up using points for domestic economy.
I don't really care a lot about the changes to the number of points, it is availability and surcharges that concern me. The problem is there are so many points out there that QF had to do something IMO to help people use them.

 

[leaving on a jet plane]

Increasing to 318k points

Thanks for the heads up Coyote25. May I ask where you got that from so I can read up?

 

[p--and--t]

The Lifetime Platinum is an utter Joke. In order to get Platinum over Gold, it goes from 600 to 1200 status Credits in a year to retain. Lifetime Gold is 3,500. As I have over 17,000 status credits, I thought I would be in line for Lifetime Platinum. But it's 75,000 Status credits which is over 20 times that of Gold. What a disgrace. What a joke. I thought the person on the phone at Qantas was having me on, but she was serious and trying to keep a straight face over the phone this afternoon when I called. Just a disgrace.

Um.

• So they introduced a new tier that didn't exist.
• A tier that already without another flight many hundreds of people will automatically qualify for as they are true mega flyers.
• Nothing has been reduced or amended downwards for any existing tier

And you are totally outraged.

Ok!

 

[Himeno]

How are people with AU addresses joining BAEC when they don't allow SW Pacific residents to join? (attempting to join EC with a AU/NZ address redirects you to CX with a message to join MPC instead).

 

[QF WP]

The problem with “fixing” this by moving the bar is it would almost impossible for QF to retrospectively take away LTG for those who have already earned.

I know they can legally but it would mean that there would be a much bigger risk of future changes which would be one big disincentive to trust the program.

Which in reality means changing the LTG qualification level would likely be for those not yet there.

I wonder how many new LTGs come on deck each month (needing to use LTG not those who qualify but are already SG or WP or WP1).

Would it be worth upsetting those aiming for LTG and being very close having their goalpost moved?

An easier way to cut cost and lounge use is to reduce or cap the LTG benefits. Maybe only allow 10-15 lounge visits per year. People will hate it but not as much as either losing LTG or having the goal posts moved just before getting to the line!

Changing goal posts now might be too hard with too much downside. Reducing or capping the benefits would be hard as well. Probably just too hard.

Correct, the term we use inour industry is "grandfathering", so the rules in place (or bookings made) are not able to be changed unilateraly to the new levels. There will be both winners and losers because of the changes. Those with pre-existing booking at the old rates for premium cabins will be happy, whilst those with economy bookings will be looking to cancel and re-issue under the new rules. For Qantas to try and retrospectively change would cause massive brand damage.

Had they moved the goalposts (as I'm an at 93% of the target SC's), I'd have been annoyed and made a judgement whether I'd continue to aim for LTG. However if they thought of reducing the benefits of LTG, I could merely invoke my Lifetime QC access and maintain unfettered QC access.

 

[TonyHancock]

I'd think with QF's LTP and how it takes forever for most of the frequent fliers to achieve, people might flock to BA's EC and soon BA (in the next 5 years) will release a revamp to it's FF program and push the requirement for EC or might also localize their program to those in the UK just saying

It already restricts membership from Australian Addresses. Resourcefulness is your friend.

 

[OATEK]

How are people with AU addresses joining BAEC when they don't allow SW Pacific residents to join? (attempting to join EC with a AU/NZ address redirects you to CX with a message to join MPC instead).

I can rely on my doting daughter in London to borrow the letter slot in her front door.

 

[QF WP]

The Lifetime Platinum is an utter Joke. In order to get Platinum over Gold, it goes from 600 to 1200 status Credits in a year to retain. Lifetime Gold is 3,500. As I have over 17,000 status credits, I thought I would be in line for Lifetime Platinum. But it's 75,000 Status credits which is over 20 times that of Gold. What a disgrace. What a joke. I thought the person on the phone at Qantas was having me on, but she was serious and trying to keep a straight face over the phone this afternoon when I called. Just a disgrace.

@TigerBob, I think you made a typo, the SC requirements for Lifetime Gold is 14,000 SC's - see: Frequent Flyer - Flying Qantas and Partner Airlines - Status Credits and Tier Benefits - Status Credits.

At 17K SC's you are only 20% more than LTG. It was always likely to be a linear increase (28K) or higher. They chose much higher than most of us expected.

 

[Kiwi_Flyer]

My only disappointment is that QF is offering LTP at such a high level. There are a number of AFFers with 30-40k SCs with QF that are still only half way there. This may discourage encourage those who otherwise would have pushed to get it to look elsewhere.

Edit: typo

Yes the extremely high threshold shows QFF sees the status as a cost not a revenue opportunity. Unless the extra benefits touted for announcement in September 2019 are fabulous (better than P1), it won't be an aspirational target. Rather recognising superflyers like @ChrisGibbs and unobtainable for almost all.

 

[kevrosmith]

How are people with AU addresses joining BAEC when they don't allow SW Pacific residents to join? (attempting to join EC with a AU/NZ address redirects you to CX with a message to join MPC instead).

Any mail for me is making it to somewhere probably non-existent in Austria...! Oops.

 

[leaving on a jet plane]

From AUSBT
Popular Oneworld Classic Flight Rewards, which are typically used to book around-the-world journeys with Qantas and its Oneworld partner airlines, will also increase. In first class, the cost will rise from 420,000 to 455,000 Qantas Points, and in business class, from 280,000 to 318,000 Qantas Points.
—-
Have to say I thought this would increase many years ago instead QF went with huge award fees/fines to reduce value but I still loved the Oneworld Classic J award. While an increase still much better than the J or F point to point or return approach.

Thanks for your help

 

[serfty]

It already restricts membership from Australian Addresses. Resourcefulness is your friend.

I have a few friends that live in the land of the sound of music.

 

[odysseus]

Qantas flew 22.1M passengers domestically FY18 at load factor of 77.8% which equates to 28.4M seats. Internationally it was 8.4M at load factor 84.2%, which equates to 10M seats SOURCE: Qantas Databook 2018. Total seats flown 38.4M.

Seems 5.2M awards were redeemed FY18. Unknown what percentage of these are economy, business, first, upgrades or toasters. But an increase of 1M seats is about a 20% increase in award availability. Assuming an equal potion based on domestic/international loads, 740,000 of the 'additional seats' would be in the domestic market, with 260,000 internationally. What isn't mentioned anywhere is what the split of economy, premium economy, business or first class award availability is. So for all we know, it may just be 1M additional economy availability.

It's neither. The first point on 5.2 redemptions would also include partners.

Similarly the 1m increase has been reported to be mostly partners, hence why the announcement highlights the additional 4 being brought on board.

i.e. Qantas' strategy is really to increase redemptions by using other airlines capacity. That way they get the liability off the books, a 'halo' effect from the customer being able to use them - but at a negligible cost, since the actual partner redemption cost to FF is very low.

 

[CaptJCool]

Sounds like we need a Points + Pay vs Rewards converter (or is there already one ?)

An example....
Points plus pay 109,000 points
Cash $739 plus $7.50 CC surcharge
Points and Cash 63,000 plus $344. Plus CC surcharge $3.50 SC = 80 PLUS 10,700 FF Points

Classic reward 63,000 plus $326. SC = 0

So that would be 80 SC for $20. 0.25 cents per SC

 

[Matt_01]

It already restricts membership from Australian Addresses. Resourcefulness is your friend.

I live in the UK somewhere, just cannot remember.

 

[p--and--t]

Just wondering (wandering?) has any other thread of AFF exceeded 800 posts in <54hours